


a little light is filtering from the water flowers

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: and will she remember me fifty years later? i wished i could save her in some sort of time machine [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestor-Era (Homestuck), F/F, F/M, Gen, One-Sided Attraction, Partially One-Sided Anyway, one-sided doloscar, the noncon is in reference to dolofang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 18:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13105920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: Before the First Ship becomes operational, The Dolorosa, The Signless, The Psiioniic, and the Disciple find their own ways to hide overseas. With the aid of one Orphaner Dualscar, they manage to keep themselves concealed for a while. Dualscar is old enough to remember the empress before the current one, and is not particularly fond of the Condesce's autocracy. So he takes in these few fugitive trolls, who offer to pay him in stolen gold and hard work, a promise they make good on.Idly, he wonders what his kismesis, Mindfang, might think of his actions. A soft heart is a weak heart. And unfortunately there is something about one of these runaways that weakens him. The more he speaks with the auxiliatrix, the more time he spends with her, the more he wonders about her quadrants. Although she never ends up as one of his quadrantmates, he still considers her a friend.Even after she, the Signless, and their companions abscond on the First Ship. Even after they meet their inevitable demises. He does not forget her. And ultimately, he assists the jadeblood when she needs help the most.





	a little light is filtering from the water flowers

**Author's Note:**

> a story from the ancestor AU that runs concurrently with parts of _[lady of silences, calm and distressed](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12180546)_ and _[hello i'm good for nothing, will you love me just the same?](archiveofourown.org/works/12180405)_

_Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people._  
_Where do the black trees go that drink here?_  
_Their shadows must cover Canada._

 _A little light is filtering from the water flowers._  
_Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:_  
_They are round and flat and full of dark advice._

 _Cold worlds shake from the oar._  
_The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes._  
_A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;_

 _Stars open among the lilies._  
_Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?_  
_This is the silence of astounded souls._

\- Sylvia Plath, Crossing The Water

* * *

Your name is Orphaner Dualscar, your actual hatchling name known to so few that it no longer matters, and you’ve just come back from the market nearest to the docks, loaded up on canned food, enough coffee to kill ten telekinetic pissbloods, and a few semi-perishables that you and your crew will likely eat during your first few weeks on the open sea. More than a few these Apprentice Orphaners have never learned the fucking meaning of restraint - why do they start conscripting them at ten? Couldn’t they wait until twelve, or, fuck, maybe even twenty?

Most of them are going to live for at least five hundred sweeps, assuming they don’t get culled first, so the Empire could wait a little longer before conscripting trolls of your caste.

And quite honestly, you hate being on glorified wiggler babysitting patrol. They complain so much about the monotony of being on the open sea, day in, day out.

That’s usually when you snipe back that monotony is actually the best thing any of them can hope for.

The older ones, who have witnessed you feed Gl'bgolyb, tend to agree with you.

At least the wigglers won’t get at the lox, considering the fact that you’ve been on the ocean so long that nobody wants to see anything that vaguely resembles fish for the next sweep. You’ve also purchased chocolate. Chocolate makes everything better.

When the Empress sees fit to execute you - she’s almost as capricious as subjugglators in terms of choosing trolls to cull - you’ll request a last meal, assuming you get one, of a dark chocolate bar. You’ve served the The Condesce for nearly three hundred sweeps, and you served the Empress who came before her - Piatri, Her Imperial Incandescence - who was somewhat kinder, for about five sweeps. Up until she got deposed by a 2x3dent.

(You play lip service to doing the bidding of the current Empress, but Piatri will always be the one you thought the most deserving of power.)

Once you return to the docks, you notice a strange sight. Four trolls, though mostly concealed by hooded garments, who are most definitely not seadwellers. Is there no upper limit for weird shit where you’re concerned?

The first one who notices you lowers her hood, and when she does, you’re face to face with a troll whose skin glows far brighter than a lamp, or maybe even a star. A few golden metal posts and rings adorn her face.

You’ve seen auxiliatrices before, so this sight doesn't surprise you. The exiled ones, who have been highly trained in troll physiology, can substitute for medicullers in a pinch. Hell, you’ve met ones who are even better. Medicullers and docterrorists give up and cull you if they think you’re beyond saving. Auxiliatrices don’t give up until your pusher stops. And sometimes not even then.

She looks you over carefully, as if she’d like to speak to you, but the shortest one of the bunch is the first to the draw.

“Cronus Ampora,” he says. “We meet at last.”

You don't know how he knows your name, and if you've learned anything, it's that if you really have no idea what the fuck is going on, there's a high chance you don't want to know what the fuck is going on.

The auxiliatrix puts a hand on the short, young troll’s shoulder, as if to hold him back.

Still, if being called Cronus Ampora doesn’t throw you for the greatest loop in the history of Alternia, you don’t know what does. Nobody besides your kismesis or your Empress has called you by that name in… several dozen sweeps. Nobody should even _know_ that name. But this kid does, and judging from his stature, he can’t be more than eight or so sweeps old.

Then you catch sight of his eye color, when he inadvertently lowers his hood.

He’s a mutant troll. Probably _the_ fugitive mutant that a few trolls in your crew have kept talking about in hushed tones. The one without a sign to his name, who thinks Alternia is an awful place that needs reform. In your opinion, he should get in line. He's not the only one. 

These other trolls, who probably also have decent prices on their heads, must be his companions.

You know, this really was not part of your plan for the evening.

You’d sooner offer yourself to Gl'bgolyb for a midnight snack than get involved in whatever the fuck this is.

That's if Gl'bgolyb would even eat you. You’re no lusus.

It’s worth a shot, though. You make a mental note to throw yourself overboard when you reach her territory.

“Can I help you?” you ask the quartet, in a tone that suggests a question more akin to “Is there any fuckin’ way I can get you as far away from my ship as possible?”

“We need somewhere to hide for a while,” the auxiliatrix says. “We can pay you. And if you cannot help us, we’ll be on our way.”

The other female troll, one with horns that remind you of meowbeast ears, takes out a sack of caegars. You have no idea how a couple fugitives got their hands on that much coin. Probably stole it. Not like you give a shit.

In your opinion, if you can’t defend your gold, and someone absconds with it, it’s your fault for being a fucking idiot and flashing it around.

“Why do you think I’d wanna help you, gutterblood?” you ask. “Gold aside, why should I give a fuck?”

“Your crewmates briefly let me onto your ship when they realized what sort of troll I was,” the auxiliatrix says. “One of them, Meliek, I think, he’s got a nasty gash on his leg, approaching the early stages of sepsis. I can treat him.”

Oh yeah, that fool of a troll. You’re tempted to let him die, since he was stupid enough to draw such an injury in the first place, but that would be bad for morale, and he's a solid Orphaner otherwise.

You have to give the gutterblood credit. She knows how to bargain, and bargain well.

“Fine, auxiliatrix,” you say, feeling as if you’re going to regret this in the weeks to come. “I’ll allow you onto my ship to fix my idiot of a crewmate.”

“Not just me,” she says, pointing at the other trolls around her. “Them too.”

“And why the swimming fuck would I do that?”

Her eyes grow cold. “Because I won’t get on your ship otherwise.”

You wish you could just board your ship, dig the bottle of spirits out of your quarters, and chug half the bottle before having this conversation.

Instead, you do one better. You equip Ahab’s Crosshairs, and point them directly at her.

What’s that thing some troll said a thousand sweeps ago? Speak softly and carry a big stick?

You’re not fond of speaking softly, but you _do_ carry a big stick.

“Fire that thing at her, and I’ll electrocute you. Painfully,” the last troll to speak says. From his appearance, he's a runaway psion.

This is so above your pay grade.

The auxiliatrix gives him a mildly annoyed look, one that causes him to drop his grief stance.

She gives you a gentle, yet faintly contemptuous smile. She flickers back into luminescence the way all rainbow drinkers can.

“Aside from the fact that this troll probably will make good on his threat,” she begins. “If I refuse to leave without them, and you cull me, you’ll have nobody to tend to your crewmate. Nobody with the requisite medication in their sylladex. The nearest medical center is… at least five days walk, in a landlocked area. The chances he’ll survive the trip are not particularly high. So, Cronus, you have a choice.”

Rarely have you been out-gambited by a troll, much less by a fucking lowblood. You find yourself developing a grudging respect for her.

“Very well, then, auxiliatrix,” you say. “All of you for can stay for as long as it takes her to fix this fucking idiot. And after that, I’m finding the nearest stretch of land and plopping your sorry asses down there. Shit, I’m doing you a fuckin' favor, when you get right down to it. You're fugitives. The authorities aren’t gonna search for you on some random jank ass island.”

The auxiliatrix extends her hand, and it takes you a moment that she expects you to shake on it. You do. For propriety's sake, you also kiss the hand, a gesture that makes her smile.

“I have a name, you know," she says, with an authority that somehow makes you shake in your boots. Even so, she sounds more amused than angry. “It’s Porrim. Porrim Maryam.”

“Whatever you say, Porrim." You gesture at her merry gang of fools. "Let's get outta here before I change my mind."

* * *

It takes a while to capture this particular sharkbeast lusus, especially with Meliek still out of commission, but you do finally manage the catch you'd been hunting for a while.

After you successfully return from your encounter with the lusus, Porrim forces you to lie down in your quarters. When you protest that a Lead Orphaner never leaves his crew unattended, and there is still so much more to do, namely properly render the lusus comatose so you can deliver it to Gl'bgolyb, Porrim glares you into submission. She assures you that your crew will act in your stead.

“Another fight with that thing, and there won’t be enough of you left for me to bandage up,” she says. “Where do you keep your spirits? I had some below deck but I suspect someone drank them.”

You’d pop some smartass remark like, “What, you need a drink before you tend my injuries?” but you know exactly why she’s asking.

“The highest concentration stuff is in a clear bottle in a chest.” You point to it.

She finds it, and soaks a cloth with the clear liquid, before dressing some of your more superficial wounds with it.

You’re a fucking Orphaner, so you’re used to pain, but holy fuck does that ever hurt.

Your eyes linger on her face long after she's finished disinfecting and bandaging things, with both your spirits, and other treatments she has in her sylladex.

If she notices, she says nothing.

"Thank you," you tell her.

She nods, and takes her leave, the skirt of her auxiliatrix regalia swishing all the while.

Later, you Mituna and you fall into a purely platonic hatred where you mutually insult each other when the opportunity arises. First Mother, you've missed exchanges like that. The members of your crew see you as their leader, and would never call you a taintchafing wader bastard the way Mituna does when you’ve angered each other enough. And Meulin's no better. For a deaf troll, she sure has a filthy mouth.

You've also embroiled yourself in mutual dislike of the troll known as Kankri Vantas, mostly because he's picked up on feelings you might have in Porrim's direction. The one time you asked why he seemed to dislike you so much, he spouted some incoherence about a place named Beforus, and the sort of sleazy troll you were there.

You're attracted to Porrim in ways beyond the conciliatory, but Kankri needn't know that. It's not as if you'll make good on those attractions, or even the pale ones, without her consent.

Still, though, even if you could quadrant with Porrim, you would most certainly outlive her, and then you’d fall into a depression that would cloud your judgment. You are Lead Orphaner of the Imperial Army. You must keep your wits about you, and not muddle them with insipid romances. Your dalliance with Aranea is dangerous enough as it is, in that respect.

However, you and Porrim… well, Porrim understands you. After you explain to her the duties of an Orphaner, and how you are beyond forgiveness for your transgressions for killing lusii, and their wigglers themselves by proxy, because wigglers without lusii are culled. Even if you performed them to avert the Vast Glub, that's hardly an excuse.

Having seen what you've seen over your decent number of sweeps of life, all the horror, all the evil, you sometimes wonder if Alternia is worth saving, or if you shouldn't just let the Vast Glub obliterate it all.

However, Porrim does not do what you expect her to do. She does not call you a murdering sack of bulges.

Instead, she begins to speak, but not with the self-assured tone you’ve come to associate with her.

No, her words are halting and almost despondent.

“In the caverns, among other things, we auxiliatrices were tasked with culling certain grubs for various reasons. In some cases, when the grubs were so malformed that they wouldn’t live for more than a few hours, days, or weeks, anyway, this duty was a mercy,” she says. “In other cases, we culled them for cosmetic, almost frivolous reasons, like having off-spectrum blood colors.”

She sighs and looks out toward the sea.

“Is that why you took in the signless mutant? Atoning for your past?” you ask.

Porrim closes her eyes and exhales loudly.

“Perhaps, Cronus,” she says. “Not even I know. But I know this. He is my vibrant grub. I am his lusus, his guardian. I will die before I see anything happen to him.”

“I get you. Sort of, anyway,” you say.

She's not done speaking yet. She takes your hand.

“Look at it this way. You culled lusii to preserve Alternia, and I firmly believe, that despite all its ugliness, that this planet is worth preserving," she says. "I culled grubs because that was what I was supposed to and told to do. Like I said, the ones who wouldn't have lived? That was a mercy culling. But the others? With mutations that would likely not have affected their lifespan, or could have been overcome? Cronus, at least your duties always served a legitimate and admirable purpose. All things should serve the First Mother, but I wonder what she would have to say on this were she here. If she would think it proper that sometimes we cull her creations for simple and minor deviations.”

Oh, great, Porrim and her fucking religion again. You believe in the First Mother Grub, the Creatrix, the way you believe in the planet Vostos 10. Sure both might exist, but you've never seen them, they're probably way fucking far doing whatever shit they do, and therefore they have sweet fuck all to do with you.

You are a troll of fucking science. Theories, evidence, and that which can be proven.

Porrim, and other auxiliatrices, though, they have personal shrines and great temples dedicated to the First Mother Grub. Pious jadebloods - which are most of them - burn incense before and leave offerings on their makeshift personal altars, when they can't reach the temples.

The time you saw Porrim lighting incense before a small jade green figurine, you flipped a shit. Sure, Auxiliatrix, go and risk setting a ship on fire in the middle of the ocean for your stupid fake-ass religion. Fucking brilliant. You asked her if she was usually this panrotted where her nonsensical faith was concerned.

She admitted later that she hasn't considered the safety risk, her mouth set in one thin line.

But in your ire, you'd blown the whole issue out of proportion. It'd take a lot more than a few carefully tended sticks of incense to endanger your ship.

You told her later you didn't mean to disparage her belief system the way you did, and that you'd been a huge asshole, to someone who had only so far tried to help you. So you apologized for paying back her kindness with malice. You even said you'd understand if she didn't forgive you, which you would have.

The immature asshole you were as a younger troll would have begged her forgiveness for perigees, probably while also refusing to admit how wrong you'd been, but you weren't that troll anymore. You would not have held Porrim's refusal to associate with you against her.

But she came back, maybe a night or two after you'd resolved yourself to losing a good friend through your own fault.

One early-evening, the sun still on the the horizon, you dragged your latest kill up to the deck. Yeah, you should have gone after easier prey, but Gl'bgolyb was satiated for longer by larger, and generally deadlier lusii, which means you didn't have to feed her as much if you caught something gigantic. The less often you had to feed Gl'bgolyb, the better, in your opinion.

Porrim informed you that you looked exhausted, and invited you to sit next to her, so she could tend to your minor wounds. Also, so she could complain about Kankri, Meulin, and their lack of proper discretion with regards to where they staged their trysts, but that was after you were calm and bandaged.

Perhaps because Porrim was one of the most conciliatory trolls you knew - prowess with a chainsaw aside - you relaxed, resting your head in her lap.

You kissed her on the side of the mouth, and she neither pulled away nor commented.

Just shrugged at you and said nothing.

"Would you mind telling me a story?" you finally asked, when the silence between you became intolerable.

She thought for a while.

"You may not like the story's subject matter. I'd just returned from praying maybe ten minutes before you returned, so I still have my beliefs on my mind."

Although you pay little or no credence to religion, except facetiously, you asked her if she would continue. If she didn't mind, of course.

You saw her religious nonsense as little more than a story, but it was usually an interesting story at least.

"You can go ahead if you want. I don't mind. I want to hear."

Subsequently, she told you the story of these major deities. Four, technically, though belief in the third had fallen out of style, because of how infrequently the goddess intervened, and how selfish she could be. There were more deities, but these were those whom Porrim knew the most about.  

There was the god of violent death - the Ruthless - the sort of entity you'd ask for strength during times of war. And if he felt like doing so, he would provide, with great alacrity, the means for his adherents to utterly decimate their enemies.

There was the goddess of all death in general - the Ferryman - a deity worshiped almost solely by lowbloods, though she had a few adherents from trolls higher on the hemospectrum. The Ruthless was a subordinate of hers, though one she disliked. And allegedly, much to the hope of many, one day, she would come forth to raze Alternia to the ground, and free the downtrodden from slavery.

And finally, there was the goddess of creation, who acted through the First Mother, also known the Creatrix, a deity by whom all auxiliatrices swear. They are the trolls who have dedicated themselves to her service, mind, body and soul.

The Creatrix did not interfere with death - because those who belonged to the Ferryman belonged to the Ferryman - but made many things, but living and dead, exist from out of nothing but space. Consequently, she helped populate Alternia, alongside the Wrangler, back when the latter still cared about propagating life.

"What do you mean that whoever belongs to the Ferryman belongs to her?" you asked.

You'd thousand more questions, but that was the first that came to mind.

Porrim replied that the Creatrix and the Ferryman were two sides of the same coin, and therefore allies.

Creation and destruction. Both natural processes, neither better or worse than the other. You could not pay proper homage to one without acknowledging the other.

You did not tell her that you thought she was mildly insane, because as much as your beliefs hung on the idea that these were nothing but old tales, Porrim's stories were interesting and compelling.

She had that same pull Kankri had, at least when he properly considered his audience, a strange ability to make trolls want to listen. And even when they didn't agree with his rhetoric, they considered, debated, and interrogated his words at length.

Through crewmates of yours who heard him speak, you had witnessed, secondhand, Kankri give speeches that made even highbloods stop to listen, and not just to report him for treason.

You wouldn't tell Porrim this yet, but you're waiting for when the powers that be decide to cull him, because he's that dangerous. He's not the first troll to espouse hemoequality, but he's got a way of convincing trolls across the spectrum to hear him out. That made, and makes him dangerous.

And then, after having heard Porrim _speak_ , with all her almost fearless vehemence, and with the way she knew how to modify her words to try to convince her audience of what she thought, knew, or thought she knew, you understood where Kankri probably got a great deal of his skill from.  

But now, now with the wind carrying the smell of salt the way it always does, now in the present time, Porrim expression has gone as faraway and melancholic as you've ever seen it, to the point that you're scared she's fully checked out, and won't ever return. You've had crewmates do that, ones who were too overwhelmed by their duties.

Partially out of desperation, you rest your head on Porrim’s shoulder, and pap her until she no longer looks like she might cry or dissociate.

She apologizes for scaring you.

“Porrim," you say, slinging a conciliatory but gentle arm around her waist, so she can pull away if she wants to. "Porrim. It’s not your fault, what you had to do,” you murmur to her. “You were just following orders.”

She laughs, but there's not an ounce of joy in it.

“Just following orders? Such a hollow attempt at shuffling blame, to point the finger elsewhere.”

True. Still.

“It’s what you were trained to do.”

“I was trained to live and die in the caverns, and look at me now,” she fires back. “I could have broken the rules and gotten exiled, but I did not. Not until Kankri.”

You're not sure what to say to that, and another uncomfortable silence hangs in the air.

Then, her expression brightens for a moment.

“You know, you could join our group, Cronus,” she says, looking hopeful. “You are the first seadweller I’ve met who has listened to Kankri’s speeches about hemoequality.”

You don't really listen so much as incline your head in his direction until he stops talking. Yes, the kid is a highly skilled orator, but hearing the same damn thing for a while gets boring fast.

“My place is here on this ship, to ensure the safety of Alternia, remember?"

She nods. You want to kiss her, and you want her to look less depressed, but there are some points you cannot concede, and some lines you cannot cross.

You are an Orphaner. This is all you will ever be. This is what you have to be.

It's silly, but you want to protect her.

But you cannot protect her.

And given her rainbow drinker luminescence and ludicrous strength, she’d be the one more likely to protect you in that equation, if you and she ever came together in terms of pale, red, or - highly unlikely - black.

However, maybe you can make her feel less guilty. Less alone. Maybe you can at least  _help_ her. It's worth a shot. First, though, you need to be straight with her once more.

"I could never join you, Auxiliatrix," you say. "I'm sorry. I'm an Orphaner. I am needed where I am."

“That is not a task you couldn’t relegate to another?” Porrim asks. "You have an expansive crew, most of whom seem well-trained."

You don’t want to say that you don’t think those younger seadwellers could carry out your actions for more than a couple dozen sweeps without losing their minds at the heft of the responsibility, but that’s the truth. 

“No. This is my duty alone."

You kiss her hand again. She nods.

"I understand."

* * *

A few hours later, Kankri Vantas, the so-called supreme pacifist, walks into your quarters without knocking and decides to shout at you. As amusing as it is to see him truly furious, you’d seriously like to backhand him across the face for interrupting you while you were reading.

However, he is Porrim’s charge, and you respect her enough to leave him unharmed. Therefore, you listen to him shout himself out. Well, not quite listen. You watch him shout himself out. As usual, you don’t particularly feel like listening to his inane nonsense.

“To what do I owe the misfortune of your company?” you finally ask.

“You made Mother upset. She doesn't want to say so, but I know you did.”

“I think Porrim is more than capable of expressing her issues with me without you barging in here like a fucking idiot. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

 _“I’m_ the fucking idiot?” he asks, incensed.

“Kankri, please don’t make me repeat myself,” you say, weary. “Yes, you’re the fucking idiot. You will always be a fucking idiot. You think you’re the first troll to advocate for pacifism and hemoequality? The first one to express your displeasure with the status quo? You think you’ll change minds? You think anyone’ll listen for long? I’m nearly three hundred sweeps old, Vantas. I’ve seen all the would-be visionaries come and go. I’ve watched them die at the flogging jut. Sure, you might be more prescient than most, with your talk of a place called Beforus, and your knowledge of hatchling names that most of us have long-since forgotten, but when you get right down to the heart of it, you’re just like the others. And you’ll die just like the others.”

“Aren’t you the most optimistic troll on Alternia?” he asks.

“I have no room in my bloodpusher for optimism,” you say. “Look at my profession”

“And you hate me because I _do_ have that optimism.”

“I hate you, because you’re going to get your friends and your surrogate lusus culled if you keep going the way you are. Your guardian, she’d follow you to your doom, and feel not an ounce of regret about it. She wants to keep you safe, so do you know what it would do to her if you died? What it would do to your other friends, assuming they were all allowed to live?”

“Even despite the danger we're in, they follow me because they believe in something greater! Greater than us!"

“And you think the others trolls who wanted to change things didn’t have the same lofty aspirations before they were culled? Fuck almighty, you sit atop a throne at the peak of idiot mountain.”

“Trolls listen to what I have to say, though. I’ve gotten a lot of them to understand! I’ve gotten them to sympathize with my goals.”

“Yeah, and they’ll die too, if they make their inclinations known. The moment you die, which you will, they’ll melt into the woodwork and pretend they never knew you. At least if they’re smart.”

“Do you suggest that I just give up?” he asks. “Watch injustice after injustice occur?”

“No, because even if I did, I know you wouldn’t. But the telekinetic? The oliveblood? The auxiliatrix? Like I said, you’re going to get them culled too. And I want you to keep that in mind. Your life is not the only one on the line, oh great signless mutant.”

“Fuck you, Cronus. I’ve no idea why Mother even tolerates you.”

“Neither do I, but nevertheless, here we are.”

“So what’s your suggestion, then? Do you have any novel ideas of your own, or do you just enjoy harpooning mine?"

You refuse to dignify his question with a response, and eventually he takes his leave.

Porrim starts to lecture you later, that Kankri can be hotheaded sometimes and to not let him rile you up, but your stricken expression stops her in her tracks.

She apologizes for his actions, has him apologize for his actions, and gives you a gentle little nod, one that suggests that you'll talk later.

Mituna and Meulin are far more blunt in admonishing you for your words with Kankri. You've heard worse. Not from them, but in general. Meulin's ability to swear more fluently than she can speak actual Common continues to amuse the shit out of you.

* * *

Like you two often do when the wigglers are asleep - they're adults, particularly the psion, but you think of them as wigglers because they're all so much younger than you.

You'll be three hundred soon.

Porrim, well, she's young as well, at least compared to you, but she is wise the way auxiliatrices are. And she's been making sure her three companions don't find some novel way to get culled. That probably has a way of aging a troll.

Right now, you're giving her a history lesson. You like talking about history.

“Most of us had our own languages before the last Empress tried to standardize things a bit,” you say to Porrim, as you pour yourself a drink. A downright strong one.

She asks for one as well, and you warn her that it doesn’t taste nearly as palatable straight as it does with juices in it.

“You think the auxiliatrices didn’t have spirits in the caverns?” she asks.

You snort.

“Lemme guess. A whole bunch of you got plastered and had a contest on who could name wigglers the most ridiculous things,” you say.

“No. We would have never deigned to resort to such frivolity, Cronus,” she says, her expression serious.

You’re momentarily scared you’ve offended her, but the look on her face is quick to lighten up again, and she says, "Okay, maybe one or two of us did."

“How'd you even figure out you could use 'em to get drunk?"

“We use ethyl alcohol as an antiseptic for the most part, at least in stronger concentrations,” she explains. “Then someone discovered, long before I came along, that you could dilute and drink it to induce mind-altering temporary euphoria... ”

“You 'trices clearly had too much time on your hands,” you joke. “For one of you to finally be all like, hey, this disinfects wounds. Wonder what happens if I take a swig of it?"

"That is, in fact, probably how it happened."

She grins.

"Still, you wouldn't believe how messed up the things Orphaners used to say and do were, back when we and used our own language. It was glorious."

Then, Porrim laughs in earnest, laughing even harder when you regale her with the stupider tales, most involving the excessive ingestion of soporifics. Like the day your matesprit of the time managed to trip a drone with a bucket of your slurry.

She keeps giggling. You grin right back at her.

Cronus, you really need to stop acting like a five sweeps old with a flushcrush. Especially now that you're a little inebriated.

“What was I sayin' again?” you ask.

“You were explaining the languages of Alternia under the regime of the last Empress,” she says. "Or you were talking about buckets and ethanol. Whichever you want to keep talking about."

You just know she replied in just that way on purpose. Two can play at that game. Besides, you should probably get back onto a more dignified topic.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, Empress Piatri, Her Imperial Incandescence, she didn’t completely mind if you spoke… whatever. Still, she did try to put a certain level of linguistic standardization into effect. You could continue speaking Vindemiatrix, or the language of the deep, or East Alternian, or whatever the fuck the telekinetics spoke, that half gestured, half gestured psychic shit, but you were also encouraged to become proficient in Common. Just to simplify everything, so we’d stop culling each other ‘cause we had no idea what the other guy was saying. Meanwhile, once she ascended, Her Imperious Condescension made Common mandatory so nobody could plot anything against her. At least that's why I think she did it.”

“Her Imperial Incandescence sounds like she was a fair monarch," Porrim says lightly.

"The Candesce was decent enough," you answer.

You're not about to divulge the ruthlessness she could display when provoked, even against her own subjects. This is Alternia. A certain amount of ruthlessness is a prequisite.

While she wasn't perfect, she was a better ruler than Meenah.

You try not to think too much about your first few sweeps anymore, spent serving an Empress you truly respected. No use in getting wistful, though.

“It was nicer here back then,” you admit. “The Condesce wants to conquer the galaxy, wants to make it all her own. Whereas Piatri, she focused largely on what was going on here. She tried to listen to what others had to say, even if she and her court were stuck up, high on the smell of their slurry, and pompous a lot of time," you go on.

Porrim drums her lacquered nails against the table.

"I see."

You're not done, though.

"You know, there’s an old tale about the Empresses. That they’re like the ebb and flow of the tides.”

Porrim downs her second drink in two swallows, like an old pro, resting her head on one hand.

“How so?”

You lower your voice.

"For every Empress who wishes to show a modicum of clemency to their subjects, the one who comes after is ruthless beyond all comprehension. Then that one is deposed by yet another a merciful ruler. So the cycle continues and on and on, until the end of Alternia.”

You glance around your quarters, even though you _know_ intellectually that nobody is listening in. Still. You’re paranoid. The only reason the current Empress spared your life when she ascended was because you - and a few scant others - were some of the best Orphaners in the fleet, and you pledged absolutely loyalty to save your asses. You and one other are the only two still living from that group.

The others died in the first hundred sweeps of the rule of your Empress, always under suspicious circumstances. They were subtle in their loyalty to Piatri, and their belief in the illegitimacy of Meenah's claim to the throne, but not subtle enough. Spies were everywhere then.

As the story goes, Meenah dipped the tines of her 2x3dent in tetrodotoxin before challenging Piatri. This move was considered illegal as per what few rules there were about the whole thing, but when Meenah won and ascended, she spread enough gold around to appease most of her detractors, and saw that those who continued to object got culled or otherwise removed from power.

And besides, there were certain types of trolls who found her temerity, ruthlessness, and resourcefulness downright heartening.

You weren't even sixteen sweeps old back when Piatri died. Naturally, you wanted to save your own skin at all costs. So you pledged allegiance and ultimate fealty to Meenah.

Then, you got on your boat, shut the fuck up, and did your duty. That tactic hasn’t failed you yet.

“I see,” Porrim says.

You keep going, the drink having loosened your tongue.

“The current Empress, she’s crazy but she’s… she’s not an idiot. She ensures any tyrianblood troll is eliminated before they’d even stand a chance at putting up a fight. So who knows what’ll happen now? Maybe she’ll sit on that throne until either she expires or Alternia does," you say bitterly. "Go light some incense and pray to your jadeblood deities that she drops dead or something.”

Porrim does not rise to that taunt.

You apologize for being rude, and she waves the apology off.

“You hardly sound like a loyalist to the methodology of our current Empress,” she says. You wonder if she gets more articulate as she gets hammered.

She taps her glass against the table, you nod in permission, and she refills it.

“It doesn’t matter what I think, when you get down to it, Auxiliatrix. I doubt it ever will.”

“You carry with you a secret contempt for the actions the Empress has performed, and yet you chide my child for voicing his disagreements with this regime.”

“His way won’t work,” you say, your voice hollow. “Like I told him. I’ve seen alotta revolutionaries come and go. The highbloods won’t want to give up their power. The lowbloods have forgotten that they outnumber them. Nothing will change. Kankri needs to understand that before he gets himself culled.”

Porrim sips from her glass. “But on the off chance that there were such a revolution? Whose side would you be on, hypothetically speaking?”

“I’d probably be too busy out to sea, feeding that abomination of a lusus, to bother picking a side in a civil war,” you reply.

She quirks an eyebrow, and given how delicate her features are, that’s a clear expression of mild distaste.

“You’re deflecting, Orphaner.”

Do you ever hate the perceptive ones. The canny ones. The smart ones, who see through you clear as glass. But hate is the wrong word. Hate is the wrong side of the coin. And it would figure that then, then is the moment that Porrim decides to take her leave, smoothing her garments out after she rises.

“You are a very interesting and illuminating conversational partner, Cronus,” she says, with a small smile.

“And you are a rankling one, Auxiliatrix.” You decide to be frank with her. “No troll has gotten under my skin the way you have in several sweeps.”

She laughs again, her cheeks flushed green.

“And here, I thought you’d filled that respective quadrant,” she says.

You snort loudly.

“When did I ever declare any pitch inclinations toward you?” you ask.

Some more of that carefully cultivated mask of Porrim's slips away, and then she laughs into her hand. You laugh with her. You may not have gained the upper hand, but you’ve knocked this jadeblood down a peg. And you've made her laugh like a total fool. You like when she laughs that way.

“Some things need not be spoken in order to be felt,” she counters, after she collects herself, still grinning.

That much is true. You still have one more hidden card in your hand.

“The lines between flushed, pale, and pitch, and are far narrower than anyone seems to acknowledge, you know.”

She blinks at you. Then, she grins. Puts her hand on yours and let it linger.

“Like I’ve said, Orphaner. You are quite the interesting conversational partner,” she says, and her glow has become more pronounced, green spots of color standing high on her cheeks.

She's almost incandescent.

You want to take her in your arms and hold her.

But that never happens.

You two never end up in that quadrant, or any other.

You and she seek each other out often, to converse, for jibes, for discussions, and you are far more attracted to her than she is to you, or at least you're more flushed where she's more pale, but still. She never quite rebuffs your slight advances.

Then the First Ship she and her group have been working on, restoring an older ship with the help of your crew, finally becomes seaworthy.

The four lowbloods leave you, and you don't see any of them again for a while.

Except for Porrim, you don't see any of them ever again.

Because later...

Later...

Things catch up to Porrim and the remainder of Kankri's close followers, and you can do nothing, because you were out to sea when they were apprehended, and their sentences subsequently handed down.

You could not have saved her. You could not have saved any of them.

So you cull more lusii, and go through the motions of existence.

* * *

Sweeps later, long after the demise of the signless mutant, your kismesis invites you onto her ship.

You think it's because she's bored, or something. She is usually bored.

But the moment you see the woman she calls her matesprit, your bloodpusher plummets.

You know the face of that slave, even with her eyes downcast, her hair grown out of the auxiliatrix style, and gone mostly gray, with silent tears running down her face.

After you and Aranea exchange caliginous insults back and forth, Aranea laughs.

“Look what I have, Cronus,” Aranea says to you. “This is my matesprit, and we've been such for sweeps now. Isn’t she the most beautiful creature you've ever seen?”

The way Porrim's eyes have gone blue and glazed over, as Aranea pulls her into a passionate kiss, tells you how exactly how consensual this relationship is.

It's not your problem what kind of shit your kismesis gets into with regards to her quadrants, but Porrim? You and she were friends once.

It hurts to witness what she's become.

For her revolutionary ideas, for her belief in hemoequality, this is her punishment? Slavery? They didn't just cull her outright? But as soon as you think it over, you understand why not. It makes no sense to cull a troll for whom death has no meaning. And with Kankri dead, forcing Porrim to live on as a slave would be a far more painful penalty than culling her.

Of all trolls, she deserves more mercy than this this torture.

Her glow starts to flicker, faint as a firefly, as she weeps.

So will help her the only way you can now.

_You know what you have to do._

She blinks at you, perplexed, when you take out Ahab's Crosshairs.

You shake your head, full of disgust at Aranea, all your words toward the blueblood dripping with contempt.

You take one step toward Porrim, your heavy boots thudding against the deck.

Then, you equip a handkerchief and hand the handkerchief to Porrim so she can mop at her eyes. She thanks you. Aranea looks confused. Does she not know that you and Porrim have a bit of a history? You're  surprised. You thought Aranea knew everything.

You aim your weapon and for a second, you think you might just shoot your kismesis.

And Porrim stares you in the eye the whole time, unmoving, until you switch targets.

“Auxiliatrix,” you say, to her.

She tries to return the handkerchief to you, eyes alight with understanding, but you tell her to keep it.

“Thank you,” she says softly, in a language you don't know.

Still, her inflections and body language comes through loud and clear.

You clasp her hands, let them drop, and apologize. She thanks you a second time, this time in Common.

She insists to you that all things serve the First Mother, even this.

After about five seconds thought, you fire straight at Porrim's center of mass.

Ahab’s Crosshairs do not miss.

A charge, and a blast, blinding bright.

Porrim drops to the deck, once she's been shot, letting out one long groan of pain, while Aranea stares at you in utter disbelief, her mouth wide open, but making no sounds.

You watch the blood flow from Porrim's abdominal wound and freely onto the wooden floor.

Aranea simultaneously curses you, and begs Porrim not to leave her behind.

Meanwhile, Porrim laughs, and laughs, and laughs, jade green blood trickling from her mouth, and down her chin.

You stand and bear witness to your actions, not tearing your eyes away until the Porrim stops moving so much. You crouch down to her level and shoosh her.

She finally stops laughing.

The moment Porrim takes one of her final breaths, eyelids flickering, you commence with ignoring Aranea's indignant, pathetic screeching, and make to return to your ship.

"I've done my good deed for the sweep," is what you tell your kismesis, cape swishing behind you, while Porrim bleeds out, as you take your leave.

You will not weep over her.

Everything you know about her insists that Porrim would not have wanted to live as a slave, or to live at all, without Kankri.

She even thanked you for what you did.

You won't cry, even though your eyes sting.

Aranea continues screaming into the distance, sounding utterly broken, her voice growing fainter as you get one of your crewmates to steer your ship away from hers.

You act as if you've heard nothing.

Because, as always, it's time for you to return to the part of the sea with the most lusii to hunt, so you can deliver them to Gl'bgolyb.

Important things must be done.

No time for mourning.

The Empress's lusus must feed.

* * *

Perigees later, you dream, vivid in a way you haven't since your wigglerhood.

Amid a grayish void, you see two young women. You walk, no glide, over to them. One wears a formal black dress that partially covers her white stockings. A white spiral has been embroidered on the dress's bodice. She smiles at you as if she couldn't be more overjoyed to see you.

The other troll is dressed in red, a strange symbol - like a cog - on the front of her dress. Her long skirt, longer than the first troll's, so long that it covers her feet, is also red. She looks faintly bored, and faintly annoyed. You can empathize. You tend to usually look the second thing.

Both of their eyes are filmed over in milky white.

They blink in unison.

"You have done so well," the first troll says, her skin glowing, and when she lowers her hood so you can see her horns, you  _understand._

That's a lie. You don't understand a goddamn thing, but you know what old friends look like, and you've missed her so much, and...

You reach out to touch her hand, but she is intangible.

"All things will have their purpose in the end," she says.

Meanwhile, the scarlet-clad troll looks almost amused.

"Least you're not telling me they'll serve the First Mother, otherwise I'd try and see if you could double die," the other troll says.

"I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, but you might mistake it for an invite," black-wearing troll says.

You watch them snipe at each other, for a while before you raise a single, nervous finger, in an effort to be heard.

"Yes?" the troll in the dark clothes asks.

"What the fuck do you want now?" the other troll asks. "Not often that you get to appear in front of gods."

Scarlet troll cackles at your utter confusion, and tells black-clad troll that she has quite the amusing taste in friends. 

"You will do so well," the second troll says. "Or you'll do adequately at least. Don't worry about it. Everything is going as it should be. You are playing your part admirably."

"What does that mean?" you want to know.

"It means exactly what the Ferryman says," the nicer troll replies.

You didn't think you could possibly be more confused than you were before, but this has thrown you for the greatest loop of the century.

"The Ferryman," you say. "Is that to say that you're God?"

The Ferryman cackles.

"Not quite. Just a dead troll with an affinity for her, to the point where she saw fit to act through me," she explains. "The Maid of Space is the same way. She's a more trollish version of the Creatrix, but not her exactly, some sorry troll fuck to be used partially as a vessel."

The Maid of Space. You ask Porrim/not-Porrim what that means, and she explains that this is her proper title here.

"We're not equivalent to gods the way you might think, Cronus," she says gently, touching your cheek. You can't quite feel the touch properly, but your nerve endings nearly approximate its pressure. "The Witch of Time was against it, but I wanted to see you and one or two others before I considered things squared away and resolved."

That part at least, you do comprehend.

"You're leaving me," you say, feeling a lot like a selfish wiggler as you say it.

"Don't worry, Ampora, you'll die sooner than you think," the Witch of Time says. "Then you two can catch up on things."

You want her to stay so badly. Maid of Space. Porrim Maryam. The Dolorosa. Vessel to the Creatrix. The Creatrix herself. Whoever and whatever she was or is, she was your foremost confidante, and you never got the proper moment to ask her to be your moirail or matesprit before you culled her. 

And she's fading before your eyes, more afterimage than troll now. 

"Think he'll remember this?" the female troll clad in black asks.

"Nah. I performed a few time cheats. He'll think it's just a dream, and not even one he'll be able to recall."

The troll in black looks slightly discomfited by this, but does not disagree.

"I'll see you around," the troll in red says. "I see everyone around. So will the Maid."

And when you awaken at dusk, you immediately have a few words on your lips, ones that make no sense, yet make you feel warm as you think them. Warm, secure, and less alone.

_Creatrix._

_Maid of Space._

Still.

Your dream recollections are escaping you the longer you stay awake. Those words. That warmth. All fading, all graying.

You want to hold them in place until you have them memorized...

...but...

...but you're no longer sure what you wish to hold down, precisely.

You were never good at remembering your dreams.

You blink at your reflection, struggle with your thoughts, and finally shrug.

Once you clean the sopor off your body, and eat your shitty breakfast of hardback and saltfish stew, you remember having a vivid dream earlier in the day, but not a single detail of it.

It's like trying to grip loose dry sand. You clench your fist, and the harder you try, the more of it slips through your fingers.

At any rate, what does it matter, really? It was just a dream.

Besides, you have work to do, and subordinates to shout at.

Dusk has arrived.


End file.
